Chasing Lions
by NobleCaliber
Summary: He's spent so long chasing her and her gaurded heart up and down the streets of ABQ, it's second nature to run after the shadow of his lioness to save not only her life, but a partnership that might be too far gone. Except he's got his own demons to face.
1. Prolouge

A/N: This is more of a prologue than an actual chapter, but I think this should take off soon… Sort of.

Anyways, my Mary/Marshall muse like grew up or something. I dunno.

/|\

"Crist, Marshall. When did you become my mother?" She slams herself into her chair, turning hastily to her computer monitor and away from him, where she sits rigidly in tense irritation.

They've been fighting a lot lately, about little things and big things. About everything from where to get lunch to which safe house to stash a witness in when their identity is revealed. They fight like it's their job and they hate it. Mary hates it because as much as she likes a good argument, he's not only the best friend she's got, he's the only one. Marshall hates it because they used to be maybe going somewhere and now they're stuck having heated arguments on which route to take to get back to the Sunshine Building.

They're just sick of this fighting but they don't know how to make it stop. Mary just wants to get back to normal and Marshall would like a little more than that, but that's nothing new.

"I'm just trying to protect you!" She's so thick sometimes, thinking she can be the only thing she needs. She can't always be independent, she does, despite what she thinks, need him. She's his partner.

"Newsflash, Doofus, I don't need your help! I had the situation under control!" Does she really think she's unbreakable? She's strong, he'll give her that- she's the strongest person he's even known. But she's not the person she wants him to believe she is, she's flawed and maybe still a little broken and defiantly a bit more vulnerable than she believes she is. Or maybe that's just him, because he knows where all the cracks and fault lines are.

"You're not as infallible as you think you are, Mare. That guy was huge, he would have broken you in half with one hand," he can't believe she really thinks she could have taken him.

"Well, we'll never know, will we? _Someone_ had to go and pull his gun and badge!"

"_Inspectors!"_ For such a small man, Stan can certainly make some noise. The manila folder in his hand also looks like bad news for the feuding partners. Just what they need, a case where they will probably have to deal with each other.

"Mary, it's you lucky day. You've got a witness on the run. Get on it," he tosses the file on her desk and quickly retreats to his office, closing the door soundly.

She pages quickly through the file, quietly scoffing at what he assumes to be her witness' idiocy, snapping her jacket off the back of her chair. She makes for the door, obviously planning to leave without saying anything more to him, but he reaches over his desk and firmly grasps her arm.

"Mary," he sounds kind of reluctant now, like he wishes they had time now to fix this because she might have to go God knows where in the process of tracking down this witness. Well, he does.

She shakes his hand off sharply and storms out faster that the gates can buzz to let her out.

"Shit," he plops back down in his chair, knowing it will do no good to go after her. They don't have time to make it right.

He wishes he could take back half the things he's said and done in the last month or two, wishes he could go back to where they were before this started, before he ended it with Abigail, before the baby was stillborn, before they became this mess that could no longer function as two halves of something that was almost whole; he wishes they could just get past this spot where they were never on the same page when it mattered and on the same exact place on the page when it was a dangerous spot for them to both be standing in at once.

Before something changed and each started contradicting the other without purpose or even motive.

When that little baby was born, already gone, it broke another little piece off of the already chipped and cracked heart of Mary, who was more broken than she'd ever admit. Even as she busted from the inside out, he couldn't help but break with her. She'd never wanted a baby once in her life, but even she shattered at the sight of that almost there but so far gone.

Something changed, then. The second he told Abby that he couldn't keep on like they were, Mary knew something had changed. He crafted up these reasons why he broke it off with her, but it felt like she could see right through them. Well, she always could. She just usually chose not to because she was afraid of what she almost knew.

She almost knew a lot of things. She wouldn't allow herself to realize them, of course. It was dangerous to know them, at least to her. He'd been waiting for her to realize, she'd been staunchly refusing to do so. She thought she couldn't, but wasn't that some form of knowing in itself?

To her, they needed to go back. To him, they needed to move forward. But they were pulling in opposite directions with equal force, so they were going nowhere at all. He didn't know what to do about it and she didn't know what about it, so they did nothing and hoped for the best.

They just have time for a knockdown, drag out fight and he can't even almost win that without the risk of losing his partner for good. He can use logic to keep the top on her volatile temper, but he can't have an all-out screaming match with her, because that's where she's in her comfort zone and once he lets her get there, she'll never leave.

She'll use it as a fortress and it's always been easier to just chase her.

/|\

Remember, your reviews make my day!


	2. Chapter One

A/N: Thanks for you guys' encouraging reviews. I'll try to keep the updates coming quickly, but no promises, this is my first long-term fanfiction. I usually stick with oneshots because I can't keep up with it sometimes.

Also, I'm so sorry this took so long! Last weekend I hauled the RV four hours up I10 for this and next weekend's horse show. Which totally sucked, this weekend, as every time I got on Calvin (my horse) something went terribly wrong in my rounds. I fell off once, almost fell off another, chipped in to every other jump, and we were just a disaster in general. We'll try not to suck as much next week.

Anyway, it's not like you read to hear me talk about how disappointed I am in myself.

The story? Oh, right!

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They say no news is good news. No news means it could go either way. But it's the not knowing they drives him crazy.

Mary's gutsy and unpredictable and be blur no small amount of lines to get the jobs done, completely erasing others.

But even when that keeps her out of trouble sometimes, it can also get her in some deep shit. It puts her in dangerous situations.

And she hasn't called to check in for five days now, and it's driving him up the wall. She could be in trouble. She could be talking her way out of a sticky situation, but she's probably fighting her way out. She could be _dead_ for Christ's sake. She could be in any given ditch from Yuma to Beaumont, Farmington to Wichita Falls, and anywhere in between. Actually, she could be in a ditch in Mexico, or in Canada, or in Russia!

Okay, she almost definitely wasn't in Russia and she probably wasn't in Canada, but she could be in Mexico. She was probably somewhere in from Arizona to Texas, but there was no way to be sure.

He looked around guiltily, pulled his computer monitor a few inches forward on his desk, and ran a GPS search on her cell, grateful for a break from writing up a report that was going nowhere anyways. The computer beeps pointedly, telling him for the thousandth time that her phone is unavailable. Which means one of two things: he phone is dead and she forgot the cable for it once again or she's dead in a ditch and her phone has been smashed to bits by the culprits.

He's not used to feeling this pessimistic. He usually sees the good in every person and situation, leaving Mary to point out everything that could go wrong. But their last argument and the lack of communication has been eating at him and he can't help it.

Looking up, he sees Stan working quietly at his desk, filling out some paperwork. Marshall rises so sharply that his chair goes spinning away, slamming with a loud crash into the wall.

Stan raises his eyes without moving his head, glancing cautiously at him. By the time he's reached his boss' office door, the man has returned to his work and does not acknowledge him.

"Stan," his patience is wearing thin and he's already irritated by the lack of attention his boss his paying him.

Stan still doesn't look up, just keeps scribbling away. "Can I help you, Inspector?" he asks evenly.

"Have you heard from Mary?" he returns hotly, so unsettled by the other man's lack of concern that he'd really like to punch someone. Is he really prepared to get in his boss' face because he's worried about his partner, who he isn't even on good terms with?

A partner who wants nothing to do with him as of late? A partner who he's spent a sizeable portion of his life after with no results? A partner who is so battered by half-healed wounds and broken promises that she can hardly stand straight? A partner that supposedly trusts him more than anyone else, but refuses to let him in for any extended amount of time?

Hell, yes. No matter how she views him at the moment, how she's ever thought of him and how she will in the future, she matters to him and he won't let it go.

"No, Marshall. I have not. As of thirty minutes ago, I had not and as of thirty seconds ago, I have not. You need to calm down."

"I'm worried about her, Stan. Something about this doesn't sit right with me," that's really an understatement; this whole situation gives him the overwhelmingly powerful urge to lose his lunch. If he'd eaten lunch, that is.

"She will call when she can," he still hasn't looked up. He's treating this whole encounter like the most important person in Marshall's life might not make it out of whatever death-trap assignment she's been fixed with.

"I'm going after her," his worry, combined with the way Stan his turning the cold shoulder, has him two steps from the door before he's even finished saying why.

"_Marshall._" It comes as more of a command than anything else.

He stops just short of storming out, turning back like a child who apologizes for his actions when he doesn't regret them in the least. Truth be told, his sig and badge might come in handy on his crazy mission, and leaving like this will probably get him stripped of both.

"Give it twenty four hours. If she hasn't made contact by then, you get the file and a nice, neat sheet of paper that says you're authorized to do whatever it is you have to do to bring her home. A day, no less," Marshall knows that's his final offer and any pushing will leave him in an unemployment office.

"And no more," he says pointedly, looking at Stan with just enough threat in his eyes to prove that he's serious.

This time, he really does walk out the door and Stan doesn't even try to stop him.

/|\

At home, he packs his bag, barely seeing anything that he puts inside. He's physically on autopilot because the way his head is spinning, there aren't any thought processes left for the rest of him.

He just can't lose her. She's his partner, has been for a decade. More than that, she's his best friend. She's his confidant, his tie to the real world where people are despicable, and she's quite possibly the only woman he's ever loved.

She's too much a part of him, too firmly and irreplaceably rooted at the center of his world, to be gone like this. To lose the rest of her life to some idiot, low profile witness who thought he'd get away with pulling shit.

He can't lose her. Not like this. Not now. Not ever. He just _can't_ lose her.


	3. Chapter Two

So… not as many reviews for the last chapter as I would have liked… You guys' reviews really do make my day and make me want to keep writing, so I'd love if, when you finish this chapter, you'd write a quick review, I'd love you forever.

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Paging through the file Stan has given him, Marshall has to physically stop himself from running out the door, hightailing it to God knows where, and going in blind, guns blazing.

But somewhere, deep down where his logic hasn't been killed by Mary, he knows it will do neither of them any good.

So he reads each and every page in the file on a witness named (Well, renamed) Alec Galley, who was once a shameless gangster, halfway up the twisted corporate ladder of the organization. Apparently, he'd reverted to his criminal ways and was now on the run from numerous police departments, the FBI, and Mary. The police and FBI, of course, being the least of his worries.

What was supposed to be a quick raid by a few officers once they found him, had seemingly gone south as no one out on the case had make contact with the people they each answered to respectively.

Marshall was actually getting his orders earlier than expected because the first body had dropped. Detective Mason Alder of Huntsville, Texas police department went into deep cover approximately a week before Mary was sent to aid in Galley's capture and had been found dead in his safe house at 3AM.

That's his first stop. He'll drive out as soon as he's done here. Run by the department, look into their findings. Then he'll check with the hotel where Alder was staying, see whether or not Mary was there. Although, with Alder dead, she wouldn't be there anymore.

Finishing the last line on the page, he closes the file and lines up the pages before sliding it onto his bag. Leaving the building, he throws the bag into the back seat of his SUV, leaving the passenger empty out of habit.

As he makes his way to I10 for his long trip east, Marshall glances over at the unoccupied seat next to him, the place usually filled by his partner on long trips like these. He wonders if the probe felt empty to her on her drive without him, but quickly reminds himself how angry they were at each other when she left.

That opens a whole new train of thought, in which he questions her, their partnership, and their ultimate ability to get past their fighting, this op, this place where everything is like jamais vu because they've been partners for years and they suddenly can't remember how to just be Mary and Marshall, the US Marshal Service's WITSEC A team.

Is she still mad at him? Mary's capacity for grudge holding never ceases to amaze him- you could be the kid who stole her gummy worms in the first grade and she'd punch you in the face on the street today for no other reason. What scares him the most is the possibility of her dying angry at him. Never seeing her anywhere but an autopsy table again, never getting to make right by her and get out of the rut.

The drive seems endless, the mountains and dessert of west Texas blending seamlessly into the humid fields and forests of the majority of the state. Late in the day, he rolls down his window and the air was so thick with vapor that his throat, accustomed to done-dry sub-Chihuahuan air practically called it quits. Only then had he realized the amount of ground he had covered. He never even really made the decision to drive through the night, he just never stopped driving. He stopped for coffee or coke, whichever form of caffeine suited his fancy at the moment, but kept going.

As College Station disappears in his rearview, he wonders if he's ready for this. If he's ready to face whatever comes, if he's ready to find her, or if he can handle the not knowing any longer. He could turn around now, slip into a bar, empty in favor of the Friday night lights of Kyle Field, and forget until the sun rises without mercy and forces him to do what he knows he has to do.

He puts a little more pressure on the gas pedal because forgetting sounds really good right about now. He's spent the last eighteen hours relentlessly driving across every type of terrain the great state of Texas has to offer, literally alone with his thoughts, thoughts that are not doing any good for his sanity.

Approaching the last exit before Huntsville, he moves the SUV to the farthest lane from the ramp, where a semi fills the space. His vehicle slides easily into town, but he's fighting it every mile. Fighting it for all it's worth. He wants nothing more than to know, but he may end up with more questions. Or some answers he can't handle. But what would be worse, both.

He finds the hotel, which is surprisingly upscale for an undercover operation by multiple task forces. As he swings his feet from the car, he thinks about what a bad idea it was to spend almost a solid day driving. His back hurts like hell, and the usual crack in each direction does little to no good. He stumbles into the lobby anyway, his bag forgotten in the parking lot.

The woman at the front desk wears a crisp, fresh uniform, her nametag reading _Stacey_ in fancy font. When he stops and rests his hands on the counter, she turns her head from the computer monitor in front of her and smiles at him.

"How can I help you tonight, sir?"

"I'd like to speak with your manager," he waits for her to call him or her, but she doesn't.

"Sir, that won't be neccesa-" he flashes his badge discretely over the counter, giving her a look so that she knows he means business.

"She checked out this morning," the young woman tell him, clicking away with her computer mouse.

Marshall pulls a head-on photograph of Mary from his wallet. "This woman?"

"Yeah, about five eight, snarky, acts like she owns the place? She left in a rush real early yesterday morning, like four o'clock," Shit, she's running. She knew Alder's cover was blown and she got out before they put the pieces together and came after her. "Is she your partner?" Stacey asks excitedly.

"Yeah, yes. I'm gonna need her room," he shoves his wallet, picture inside, and badge back into his pockets.

"Oh, I can't do that."

"Look, ma'am, this is a federal case, and I really need to find her," he stands firmly at the counter, unwavering. She looks unaffected, so he wings it, "It's a matter of national security," he almost laughs at his own cliché.

A smile slowly unfolds across her face. "You're in love with her," she says matter-of-factly. Unsure how to respond, he waits while she programs a keycard and hands it to him. "Room 672, sixth floor."

He throws his thanks over his shoulder even though he's already halfway to the elevator. He rides up alone and practically sprints the last thirty feet of this segment of his journey- the hallway from the elevator to the room.

The room has been cleaned, and it sits in front of him in stiff, Pinesol-ed perfection with it's crisply made beds and fluffy white towels. He knew it would have been visited by the cleaning staff, but part of him was holding out for it to still be messy and Mary in order for him to find some clue, some shred of evidence of anything, something to tell him what her next move was.

Unable to let even one shred of that hope go, he moves methodically though the room on autopilot. He combs through every fiber of the room four times over, coming up with nothing.

That piece of hope he'd been holding onto began to waver, he plucks the Bible from one of the drawers in the bedside table and begins to page through, but the book falls right open to a section in Exodus. At first, he thinks it must be commonly opened there, but folded up and tucked into the seam is a slip of paper from the hotel notepad on the desk.

Trying in vain not to let his hops skyrocket, he slowly pulls the sheet from the Bible, exhaling heavily as he unfolds it.

Scrawled in Mary's hand in the center of the page is one word: _Tyler._

/|\

So, that review?


	4. Chapter Three

So sorry it took so long to update, life got hectic. I'll try to update again soon because I haven't recently, promise.

AS far as the structure from here on out, any time Marshall is on the road alone from here on out, he'll be thinking. I know the last chapter was lots of thinking and not a lot of action, and I'm not sure how much better this one is as far as that goes, but the as of now it's him following clues, but we will get to some flying bullets and the likes later, sound good?

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Tyler. Was Tyler a shady guy their witness ran with, one of the men she was after, someone helping her? And even then, was it a first or last name? A place?

_ A place_.

He turns on his phone, which he's under strict orders to keep off except while in use to prevent the people after Mary from keeping tabs on him. He quickly dials Stan, greeted by a chirpy, "McQueen."

"Hey, Stan. It's Marshall. You have anything to indicate that they're heading north?" He has it all riding on this, he has nothing if he didn't have this.

"Actually, yes. Delia discovered an alias Galley created when he left, the name he's using is Ethan Faith and credit card transactions showed him moving north from where you are to a-" he trails off, as if consulting his notes. "Tyler, Texas, a little over a hundred miles north of you."

"Show_ed_? As in no longer?" Shit, there it went. He doesn't know where she is, he doesn't know where to go, he doesn't know how to get to her without his destination being Tyler.

"Yes, he was moving towards Waco when he stopped using the credit card," he stops as if mid-sentence, like he has something more to say.

"But-" Marshall prompts.

"Mary's phone turned on this morning; she placed seven calls that never connected before it powered down again," something was off about the way he said it, it wasn't right.

"Who'd she call?" Marshall demands, agitated. Something about this whole exchange rubs him the wrong way.

"You, Marshall. She called you. Seven times in a row."

Not only was she trying to contact him, which said something about the reparability of the relationship they still almost had, she had really needed to speak with him, so much so that she dialed seven times, only to be greeted by his voicemail each and every call. Calls he never even got.

This case was extremely high-profile case, anything could happen. She could be in danger, she could need his help. Of course it could be nothing, but he'd never felt like he'd completely failed her before.

"And it shows her as being in Waco?" he asked, fighting through his fear for her and the pain of losing her.

"Yes."

"I'll head in that direction. Bye," He doesn't wait for a response, can't. He powers the phone back off.

When he met her, from day one he knew how her childhood had left her. She was bitter and jaded from raising her sister while still a child herself, from her mother's alcoholism and irresponsibility; she was still broken from her father's abandonment of her.

And it showed, every second of every assignment. She was incapable of allowing him to call the shots for more than five seconds. Getting her to trust him took two years and two dozen close calls, getting her to call him friend to even longer.

Recognizing the damage another silent drive could do him, even if it was shorter than the last, he flipped on the radio as he slid into his black SUV after checking out.

It does little good, managing to distract him for all of five minutes. He's never been good that way, his mind spinning and spinning, incapable of turning off. He could think himself in circles, and he has. He is.

Somehow, he gets around to things he's never come to terms with. He goes from the first time he's ever let her down beyond not getting enough pico de gallo for the chips at lunch to things between them, long past, that he can't seem to make peace with.

Her kidnapping. She never talked to him about most of went on in that basement. Not that he excepted it (It is Mary, after all) or that it's any of his damn business, because he didn't and it wasn't, still doesn't and still isn't. He's read every word of every page on it that's ever been filed. O'Connor's reports, the arresting officer's, Brandi's, Jinx's, Stan's. Mary's. His own, even.

Not only can he not fathom what hell that must have been, he couldn't do anything to stop any of it. And as much as Mary is not used to being controlled and powerless, he's not used to being useless. But he was; his partner was out there along and he had no leads, little jurisdiction, and fast-fading hope.

Then she was there, speckled with another man's blood, caked in a terrified sweat, and fighting for her life from behind uncharacteristically frightened eyes. Gone again, with a family who'd brought it all upon her and who, God bless them, had no idea how to deal with her on her good days, let alone after that.

Her shooting. Damn, he should have been there. He was her partner and the one assignment he wasn't by her side, a bullet tore through her abdomen like it had every right, fell on the other side, and almost took her from him. Some junkie with a gun playing crime boss, playing God. A man worth no more than the handcuffs around his wrists had almost taken his partner's life like it was only worth the cost of the bullet that came from the barrel of the gun.

He has the bullet. Not on him, but in a small evidence jar on his mantel. Because that bullet almost took his life with hers, he's certain it would have destroyed him if she'd died in the OR. One jar to the left is the shot the penetrated his own body.

Southwestern sunset wasted, he'd told her that he couldn't do it anymore, that he would be the next person to walk out of her life. The twinge in his heart and his bullet wound when she fought for him, when she told him he wasn't allowed to quit on her. Even with the partial promise of her check on his, he'd known it would be suicide to stay. He did anyway.

Shaking his head vigorously in a useless attempt to free himself from his overactive brain, he pulls over on the ramp after taking the first exit to Waco.

He calls Stan, but there's nothing new. No credit card transactions, no security camera footage, nothing to prove where she is or where she's staying. Where she's going.

He finds a motel, rents a room on the Marshal Service's dime, and falls face up on the bed above the comforter to stare at the ceiling and maybe fight for some sleep until news comes.

/|\

Again, so sorry for the wait.

Review anyway?


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